courage, dear heart
by matchaball
Summary: She reminds him that it doesn't take a superhero to be lionhearted. [Marichat]


_1\. you are scared_

When Chat makes the critical mistake of peering into Mirror Mirror's looking glass in the middle of their fight, the immensity of his sudden overwhelming longing is matched only by the realization that his biggest desire couldn't have been anything else.

His mother smiles warmly back through the looking glass, her arm wrapped protectively around his shoulders. She's just as he remembers, with her gold-spun hair and vivid green eyes. Warm and expressive in all the ways his father is not.

Chat reaches a hand up to his shoulder, watching his reflection copy him, but freezes just before he can touch his mother's arm. He _knows_ that this isn't real, that this is just Mirror Mirror tempting him to touch her glass so she can trap him within like she did to so many other hapless civilians. Or, she had until Ladybug freed most of them using her Lucky Charm.

This was the trade-off then. Ladybug's absence while she recharges for his mother's presence.

Chat's hand lingers in the air still, reluctant to break the illusion.

His mother leans forward towards him and presses her free hand against the glass, her expression pained as she's stopped by the barrier. An ugly, visceral sound catches in Chat's throat as he restrains himself from reaching back by gripping his baton hard enough to snap it. She is so close, close enough to remind him of all the little details he'd forgotten. The way she moved, the way she looked at him, the way she always seemed a little sad.

With so many tells, she _must_ be real.

"Do you believe in resurrection?" his mother whispers.

His heart freezes at the suggestion, warring with fear and uncertainty. He doesn't have an answer; he isn't even sure he wants to know if there is an answer. His heart restarts in double time as his mother smiles like she already knows the truth.

"I miss you," she murmurs. Her hand presses tight against the glass, reaching for him, imploring him to touch her back. "If you take my hand, I can come back. I can come back to you."

"I can't," Chat chokes back, and it's the bitterest reality. "I shouldn't."

"But it's what you want."

It is, more than anything. Mirror Mirror's blatant manipulation inspires only fear and revulsion in him, but his mother's words pull at his heart. Longing prevails.

And within, the tiniest seed of hope.

His finger twitches. His hand slowly lifts.

"Chat! Whatever you're seeing, it's not real!" a voice punches out from behind him.

 _Ladybug_ , Chat thinks before two arms wrap around his waist and yank him back. He stumbles and falls, hand flying out still towards the looking glass, towards his mother, before a pained cry at his landing prompts him to immediately roll over to relieve his weight.

 _Marinette_ , Chat realizes in disbelief, his heart in his throat as he sees her clutch the back of her head in pain. He instinctively scoops her up in his arms, curving his body around to protect her.

An enraged shriek jerks his head around to face Mirror Mirror's displeasure at the interruption. Marinette nearly slips out of his arms as his gaze is caught by the looking glass once more, and held by his mother's distressed face.

"Don't leave me," his mother begs, her palm flattened against the glass.

Chat doesn't think. He reaches for her, the ring on his finger glinting in the light.

"Don't you dare!" Marinette yells as she seizes his wrist in a vice grip. "This is a trick! Listen to me, Chat!"

"Is it a trick to have what you want?" Mirror Mirror speaks then. The looking glass glints in her hands.

"You shouldn't always have what you want," Marinette shoots back, her free hand dipping into her jacket pocket surreptitiously. "Nothing comes without a cost, and your cost is too high!"

Her hand flies out, whipping out a cookie of all things towards the looking glass. Even without looking, Marinette's aim strikes true as the cookie hits its target squarely and smears chocolate across the surface.

"No," Chat whispers involuntarily as his mother's face disappears. Fear is a cold lead weight at the bottom of his stomach. Her eyes are the last to fade away, the accusation in them echoing his worst fears all over again. "Don't leave me again."

"I can bring her back." Mirror Mirror addresses him directly, sensing the weaker target of the two. She holds her looking glass out in invitation. "All you have to do is give me a single touch."

"And then she'll take everything from you," Marinette hisses. She scrambles to her feet, dragging Chat by the wrist. Her eyes fix not on Mirror Mirror but on Chat, trying to catch his gaze. "Don't sacrifice yourself for an empty promise. If you wanted the easy way out, you wouldn't choose to be Chat Noir."

She steps back, displaying remarkable strength as she pulls Chat away.

Chat knows, he _knows_ Marinette is right. Her words arrow into his chest and plant the truth too solidly to ignore. A small part of him still resists, still believes in the reality of who he saw and could touch. Or wants desperately to believe in it.

Hope is such a dangerous thing.

Sensing his hesitation, Marinette reaches up and flicks the bell hanging on his neck. It chimes sharply, brightly, but it's the familiarity of her gesture that finally releases the last of his hopes. His hand reaches for hers.

"Marinette," he murmurs, fingers curling around hers.

"I'm here. _I'm_ real," she assures him. She glances over his shoulder, her eyes widening in alarm. " _Run_!"

There's no hesitation, only complete trust in the way Chat scoops Marinette up without question and does as she says.

The brutal sound of shattering glass follows them. He runs and he doesn't look back.

.

.

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 _2\. you are scarred_

There's something to be said about rain, about the way it blanks into white noise. About the way it blurs everything into a pale gray. About the way one can hide within it.

Chat sits on a bark bench in the empty park, hidden by the shadow of the tree above him and the darkening sky. His gaze fixes on the statues in the middle of the park, on the confident smirk on his carved face and on the victorious smile on Ladybug's.

He tries not to think about his mother.

It's been a week and he still feels the loss. Despite the emptiness of Mirror Mirror's promise, the memory weighs heavily on his shoulders. Ladybug had come and they'd defeated Mirror Mirror together, but he couldn't face the concern in her eyes when she held her fist up for their congratulatory fistbump. He trusts her with his life, but this was too close to home for him to reveal to her.

So Chat walked away from her that day and headed… elsewhere. Somewhere distant and quiet to sort out his thoughts.

Unfortunately, sorting looks a lot like wallowing if you're sitting in the rain by yourself.

The sound helps. Droplets drum around him in a constant rhythm, blanking out every other ambient noise that usually assails his sensitive hearing. He concentrates on it until the noise falls over him like a blanket, washing out his thoughts and hurts until he's thinking about nothing at all.

"Hot chocolate?" Marinette's quiet voice offers. Chat's eyes open and his head tilts to see her decked out in bright raingear and juggling a pink umbrella and a thermos in her hands. She smiles kindly. "Misery loves company, so they say."

He blinks away rainwater from his eyes, unprepared at her intrusion. Except it's not an intrusion at all as she hoists the umbrella above his head and places a thermos between his cold hands. That done, she flips her hood up over her head and stands in front of him. Colour doesn't grey out on her like it has on everything else. Marinette is warm and solid and _real_.

"Do you want me to stay?" she asks. There is no condemnation or pity in her expressive eyes, only concern.

Chat's hand lifts up to grasp hers. His fingers hook onto hers and he doesn't let go.

It's answer enough. Marinette settles in the space next to him on the bench and watches the rainfall with him.

"You know," Marinette says after a long while, "no one would've blamed you if you touched that looking glass."

Chat's hand involuntarily tightens around hers as he tenses. Shame winds tight around his shoulders and he hunches them up, ears flattening against his hair.

"I came so close," he whispers. "I would've if you hadn't come. What kind of hero does that make me?"

"A human one," Marinette answers. "It must've been pretty important to you if you're still thinking about this so long after you and Ladybug beat Mirror Mirror."

It's an invitation to talk, similar to the one he saw in Ladybug's eyes when they fistbumped. This time, he takes it.

"I saw my mom," Chat answers, his voice distant as he remembers his mother's green eyes. Her palm flattened against the glass, reaching for him.

"Oh," Marinette breathes. She looks at him, soft with sympathy. "I didn't know. I'm sorry, Chat."

"I'm sorry too." He looks at his hands, the one cupping the thermos and the one holding Marinette's, and considers his sharp clawtips, the black leather often coated with Cataclysm like slick oil. His hands, and the destructive burning that comes after.

His is not the kind of touch meant to save a person.

"How do you know if Ladybug couldn't have brought her back?" he asks, because hers is the touch that _can_.

There it was, that damnable hope coming back like an unwelcome haunting.

"Because you would've needed to give yourself up," Marinette says. "Because Ladybug can't restore what was never really there." She looks away then, her voice dropping low. "Because it wouldn't have been fair."

"Fair?" The word steams out of Chat like a popped balloon. "What is _fair_."

When Marinette looks at him, her mouth is set in a stubborn line, her eyes sharp and focused. In an instant, Chat can see her looking at the bigger picture outside of their moment, outside of him. It makes him feel contrite, and a little bit small.

"It isn't something that's equally dealt to everyone," Marinette says slowly, as if working out her thoughts as she speaks. "But it should be. Which is why what you and Ladybug do is so important. You maintain order and balance. You give people hope."

Her words are quiet but they ring loudly in his mind. He wonders how she does that.

"You wouldn't have touched it," Chat guesses. He's certain in this. Marinette's strength is one that continues to surprise and humble him in its scope and depth.

Her lips twist up in an ironic sort of smile. "I don't know. Maybe. I didn't look."

"You didn't want to know?"

"I know what I want." A blush stains her cheeks and she looks a little embarrassed, even as she smiles. "Or, well, who."

For the first time that evening, Chat cracks a toothy smile as he scans her expression. "Why, Princess, is this about a boy?"

"NO," Marinette denies too quickly and loudly. She groans as Chat starts laughing. "Ugh, I regret everything."

"Not this lucky guy though," Chat teases. He opens up the thermos and takes a sip of hot chocolate, savouring the sweetness twining down to his belly already warmed from laughter. "Did something happen with him?"

"I wish," Marinette sighs, shrinking her chin beneath her collar until her words are all muffled. "I'm just a scrambled mess around him. He probably thinks I'm crazy."

"I doubt it," Chat laughs as he hands her the thermos and watches her take a sip. "Anyone with any sense can see you're something special, and he's an idiot if he can't see that."

Marinette chuckles and nudges him playfully in the side. "Thanks kitty, you're not so bad yourself."

They sit comfortably in silence, sides pressed up together. Chat has never been so glad for Marinette's warmth and company and fortitude. Her presence has a potency that chases away his doubts and fears, leaving him feeling himself again, healing what even Ladybug's Miraculous Ladybug cure could not.

He understands her words, her belief in fairness. He understands how someone like Hawkmoth would see people as only tools to be used and then discarded when broken. Disposable, forgettable, and only a means to an end.

But when Chat looks at Marinette, he can't see her as anything other than extraordinary.

"So what now then?" Chat asks quietly.

"Now?" Marinette echoes. "You just keep going. Keep moving on." Her hand reaches for his and finds it. "And know that you aren't alone."

.

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 _3\. you are sacred_

When Chat hops silently up to Marinette's balcony, she's already there waiting for him, cocooned in a thick blanket against the brisk night air. Two cups of hot chocolate steaming gently sit on the table next to a plate of cookies. It's a bit of a strange routine they've fallen into, but one that he looks forward to.

The hot chocolate and treats are nice, but Marinette is who he always comes back for.

She yawns as he curls up on the beanbag next to her, teeth bared as her mouth opens wide. Chat reaches over and tickles her gently beneath her chin, chuckling at how much like a cat she looks in the moment.

"Hey kitty," he teases.

Her yawn clicks closed and she flicks the bell on his suit, smirking as it rings brightly. "Hey Princess."

It doesn't take them long to curl into each other, her head on his shoulders, his tail wrapped around her blankets, hot chocolate in their hands. Marinette sighs and Chat can feel her utter contentment as she relaxes into him. He hugs her just a little bit closer, nudges his legs under hers until her blanket sprawls over his lap as well. Her hair tickles his nose when he turns his head just slightly and presses his cheek to the top of her head and although he sort of wants to sneeze, it's a feeling he wants to live in forever.

"You seem happy," Marinette comments sleepily.

"I am," Chat admits simply. "Are you?"

"Mmhm. I feel all light."

Chat knows the kind of happiness she means, the sort of airiness that rises up and expands and expands until there is nothing but peace, but his mind immediately thinks of gold light filling Marinette up instead. And somehow, it seems all the more fitting. Light has always been an invitation to happiness.

When the nights seem too dark and his insides feel hollow and empty, he remembers this. How it feels to be full. He understands, how this kind of happiness can feel like a kind of holiness.

"What're you thinking about?" he asks. Silence answers, stretching long enough for him to wonder if she's fallen asleep. After a long pause, a quiet hum resonates from her throat and purrs along his shoulder, saying otherwise.

Chat looks at her, and sees the city lights constellated in the sky of her eyes, burning star-bright.

"Do you believe in miracles?" Marinette asks.

"I'm not sure," he admits as he looks at his hands. His fingers flex slowly, dragging sharp clawtips across his palm like a penance, but when Marinette reaches over and gently threads her fingers with his, he finds himself uncurling instead like an offering.

She squeezes his hand reassuringly. This close, he can feel the faint beat of her pulse against his palm, steady and unyielding. It's familiar, a kind of strength that he's known in another- but where Ladybug is a storm of adrenaline and courage and daring, Marinette is the eye, the calm to return to. And Chat does, again and again and again.

She reminds him that it doesn't take a superhero to be lionhearted.

"I'm not sure," Chat murmurs again. Marinette's hand folds together with his like a prayer, like an answer. "But I know you make me believe in something."

* * *

 **AN:** HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY  gorovaia / congestex ! You are a shining star of a person who's brought me to tears multiple times with your sweet kindness and gorgeous art and wholehearted encouragement. I hope every single day is a great one for you because you deserve nothing less :)


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